The Ending I Want(27)

“When I’m done?” Liam’s brows draw together, puzzled.

“You’re up to sing. I thought you’d want to show off your killer serenading skills to Taylor. Because we all know how you want it that way.” Cam chuckles, a shit-eating grin on his face.

Liam looks confused for a moment. He glances at Eddie, who is also wearing a huge grin.

Then, something dawns on Liam, and his expression drops. “You didn’t?”

“Ye-ah,” Eddie sings from behind us.

“You are…” Cam sing-laughs.

“You set of cunts,” Liam growls.

“Aw, don’t be like that. You’re my fire!” Eddie bursts out laughing.

“I f*cking hate you both. Why the hell am I still mates with you?”

“Tell me why!” Cam barely gets the words out because he’s laughing so hard.

I can’t help but laugh. I have no clue what I’m laughing about, but I have a feeling I’m about to find out.

“Hardy-f*cking-har. I hope you both f*ck hookers, and your dicks fall off.”

“You do realize that’s medically impossible, right?” Eddie smirks at him.

Liam looks murderous, which only makes Eddie and Cam laugh harder.

He sighs and gets up from his stool. He turns to me, cupping my chin in his hand, staring deep into my eyes. “Whatever they tell you, it’s a lie.” He lifts his eyes over my head, leveling them both with a harsh glare. “And if I were you two, I’d sleep with your eyes open from now on.” His eyes come back to me. “Remember, Boston, all lies.”

“All lies. I got it.”

He kisses me firmly on the lips and then leaves me. Walking in the direction of the stage, he looks defeated, like a man heading for execution.

Liam climbs up onto the stage and takes the microphone that Lee was holding out for him.

The next thing I hear is the intro for “I Want It That Way” by the Backstreet Boys, and Liam starts to sing. Rather badly.

Okay…

I turn back to Cam and Eddie, barely able to control my laughter. “So, which one of you is going to tell me the story behind this song and why Liam looks like he wants to kill you both?”

Cam grins and rests his arms on top of the bar while Eddie moves his stool closer.

Leaning forward, Cam says, “Okay, so we were sixteen years old. We were in an all-boys boarding school, and girls were like gold dust to us. So, when you got a girl…well, it was like Christmas. Anyway, Liam was seeing this girl, Sophie Forester, from a neighboring school. And she dumped him because she’d heard that he’d shagged another girl.”

“Had he?” I ask.

“Oh, yeah, totally,” Eddie says.

“But Liam was all cut up because he realized that he’d made this huge mistake by sleeping with this other girl.” Cam slaps a hand to his chest, feigning drama. “He was down and driving us f*cking nuts, so we snuck out of school and took him to the off-license to buy some booze. We thought if we got him drunk, he’d shut the f*ck up about Sophie. Only it didn’t quite work out that way.”

Eddie tells me, “We were sitting at the park, getting hammered on cheap cider, when Liam gets to his feet and suddenly announces that he has this amazing”—he emphasizes with his hands, laughing—“idea and that Sophie will forgive him and get back together with him.”

Cam laughs. “Of course, we encouraged this line of thinking because…well, we thought it would be funny to watch Liam do whatever he was going to do to win this chick back.”

“So, we walked to Sophie’s house,” Eddie continues, “which wasn’t that far from the park. When we got there, all the lights were on. I thought that Liam was just going to go up and knock on her front door, so he could talk to her. But, oh, no, that wasn’t what Liam had in mind at all. He was planning something…bigger. So, he staggered across her front garden, trampling all over her mother’s flowers in the process, and he stood beneath Sophie’s bedroom window, which faced out onto the main street. Then, he just started…singing—loudly.”

“Oh my God!” I cover my mouth with my hands. “‘I Want It That Way.’”

“The very song.” Eddie fist-bumps me. “Sophie was a massive Backstreet Boys fan. So, dickhead over there thought he could win her back by serenading her with her favorite song.”

“And the best part was, not only was he a f*cking terrible singer—as you can currently hear—but Sophie wasn’t even home,” Cam tells me. “She was out at a party with her family. So, the silly cunt was singing to an empty house.”

I’m laughing harder now, clutching my stomach.

“It was f*cking brilliant!” Eddie laughs.

“So, what happened when he realized that Sophie wasn’t home?” I ask.

“He didn’t. He thought she was holding out on him, so he just kept on singing—until the cops arrived, that is.”

“The police came?” I gasp.

“Oh, yeah,” Eddie tells me. “Sophie’s next-door neighbor had rung the police. Next thing we knew, Liam was arrested for underage drinking and disturbing the peace. They rang his granddad, and he had to go down and bail Liam out.”

“It was the single greatest moment of my life.” Cam grins. “And one we’ve never let him live down.”